


Marching (Or Not)

by RobinPlaysTrumpet15



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Gen, Injury, Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Triggers, cody centric, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23708755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinPlaysTrumpet15/pseuds/RobinPlaysTrumpet15
Summary: Cody watched the missile come closer. He could have been done.Please. Read. The. Tags.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 5
Kudos: 149





	Marching (Or Not)

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** If you _didn't_ read the tags, this story contains self-harm, suicidal thoughts, suicidal ideation, and depictions of blood and injury.
> 
> This is not beta read and hardly proofread. If you see any glaring grammar mistakes, feel free to let me know and I'll fix them.

_Fuck,_ said a voice he could hear in a corner of his mind.

Obi-Wan’s head snapped forward. His eyes focused on a body up ahead of him, familiar in white and gold armor he would know like the back of his hand. He was kneeling on the ground, watching a missile arc in the air and aim down towards him.

_This is gonna hurt…_

Obi-Wan picked up the pace. Come on, Commander. Get up. Move. Do _something_.

_At least it’ll be over._

No!

His eyes widened then narrowed in determination. He pushed himself harder, ten feet behind the familiar body, then launched himself into the air.

Obi-Wan met with the missile, slicing it in half and forcing it to explode in the air around them instead of impacting on the ground.

He turned back to Cody, frowning at him slightly. There wasn’t time to pull his commander aside and ask what the fuck he’d been thinking. There wasn’t time to shake sense into him or hold onto him as tightly as he wanted to.

Instead, he shouted for him to get back and take cover, only following once he knew the man was moving.

They would just have to get through this first.

*

Cody did what he could to avoid his general once he was back on the _Negotiator_. He dealt with his men, dutifully allowed Blackberry to patch up a couple spots, then retreated to his office for paperwork. He’d been putting it off for a little while.

It wasn’t an excuse. No, not at all. He’d never _intentionally_ avoid his general.

Okay, well, maybe he would.

But just for a little while. Just until the man was distracted with something or someone more important than Cody.

They were on their way to Coruscant. It would take a day and a half in hyperspace to get there.

By the middle of the night cycle, Cody had yet to be interrupted. He sighed, rubbing at his face and bouncing his leg. He pushed away from his desk, away from the paperwork he’d almost finished.

He fidgeted. Itched. Couldn’t get comfortable. Couldn’t keep his mind distracted.

His bracers and blacks rubbed uncomfortably against his forearms and the bacta patches he knew he had to change.

He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t.

But it felt better than _this_. It felt better than being the last one. The only one who survived. He deserved this. They died and he didn’t. He couldn’t even say his evening remembrances anymore because he kept forgetting names. There were too many of them.

This was easier. Easier to add a mark. So he’d never forget. The name may slip his mind one day, but he’d carry them with him forever.

Cody shoved himself to his feet. He stripped out of his armor, even removed his socks. He was left barefoot in just his blacks.

Cody grabbed for the sheathed pocketknife in his discarded utility belt, with a towel, clean clothes and a couple bacta patches and gauze. Then he left his room as calmly as he could and made his way to the closest refreshers.

The ‘freshers were blissfully empty, allowing him to lock the showers behind himself and be alone. No one would come looking for him at this time of night in the middle of a hyperspace jump. But he also didn’t want anyone stumbling in on accident.

No need to show the rest of the battalion his guilt and shame.

He turned on the shower, as warm as he dared. He wouldn’t be long, but he tended to be longer than the others, and the hotter the water, the sooner it would shut off. And he didn’t intend to go to bed with soapy hair.

Cody stripped his shirt over his head, standing beneath the spray as if he wasn’t still half-clothed. As if he didn’t feel naked already without his armor.

He kept his pocketknife well taken care of and sharp. It was safer that way, somehow. He needed less pressure, mitigating the risk of accidentally pressing too hard. It did exasperate the risk of cutting too deep with little enough effort, but Cody had a steady hand. Always had.

He stared down at his arm, skin crawling and itching. He brought the blade to his wrist and-

He’d almost died today. That missile had almost ended him.

It could have been over. He could have been marching away already. He could have been with his _vode_ already keeping watch. Could have met up with Waxer, maybe. Or Fives. Hevy. Any of his hundreds of men he’d seen come and go over the past three years.

He could have been _done_.

Cody hoped the wetness on his cheeks and the drops of water falling off his chin were from the showerhead above him. He couldn’t see. The room around him was light gray and blurry, but that would be steam. Water in his eyes. Exhaustion.

~~Anything but tears.~~

Blurs of red colored his arm, streaming off his skin and swirling down the drain.

He should grab the soap. Wash away the red and the dirt and sweat and grime. ~~Scrub away the tears.~~

Cody didn’t do any of that.

Pressure built up in his chest. His eyes stung. His vision blurred even further. His arm burned and stung and ached.

But he didn’t itch anymore.

He deserved this.

If he was left at the end of the day, if he was who survived when so many of his _vode_ didn’t, then he deserved this. He would deserve this for the rest of his life, until the day he took that step and marched ahead, keeping watch on the road ahead for those he leaves behind.

His knees buckled and he slid down the slick wall to sit on the floor. Lukewarm water pelted down on him as he sat, holding his arm ~~and crying~~.

Cody had no idea how long he sat there, or how many tallies he made. He had no idea how much red ran down the drain with the water. His head was floating, off somewhere far away from here.

He could have been sleeping.

He could have been marching.

But the hands suddenly on his biceps confirmed he wasn’t doing that second one. They felt too solid. Too real.

He didn’t know who it was, or how they’d gotten in. He’d locked the door. They shouldn’t have been able to find him. He could hardly open his eyes to find out.

Cody heard nothing that was said to him. He didn’t hear the desperate shouts for someone to get a medic. He didn’t feel the towel and spare shirt pressed against his arms. He didn’t even notice when he was lifted by strong arms and carried out of the ‘fresher.

Everything was fuzzy and distant and going steadily black.

*

Blackberry wasn’t supposed to be on duty, Obi-Wan knew. He was supposed to be asleep.

“I just looked him over yesterday,” he heard the medic mutter to himself. “He was fine…”

Obi-Wan doubted Cody had been fine. But it wasn’t something everyone could spot. Blackberry was admittedly better than most, but he wasn’t perfect. And Cody was good. Good at hiding. Good at pretending. Good at lying.

Too good.

It didn’t honestly take long. The cuts were not deep, but there were a lot of them. Blackberry cleaned them up, dried them off, slathered them in bactarub. Then came the gauze, and Cody was done.

He was left shirtless, changed into a dry set of pants, and covered with a sheet and a blanket.

Obi-Wan sat at his bedside in the back of the medical bay. He had no idea exactly what he was waiting for. He didn’t know what he would say to the man when he eventually woke.

But he would wake, and Obi-Wan would have to say something.

The Jedi spent his time preparing thoughts in his head, practicing lines to ensure they were lines. Making sure he didn’t say the wrong thing. Worded it all _perfectly_.

It was three in the morning when Cody groaned and shifted, his eyes cracking open against the dimmed lights of the medical bay.

Obi-Wan smothered the urge to jump up and hover. He stayed seated, waiting for Cody to get his bearings, realize where he was and who he was with.

It took a few minutes.

Then those amber brown eyes settled on him, looking awake and aware and lucid.

Everything he’d planned to say suddenly disappeared.

“General,” he said quietly.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan responded in kind, forgoing the use of titles. This conversation had no need for them.

“Do you remember what happened? Why you’re here?” he asked, gentle as anything.

Cody frowned. Then he shifted, lifting one arm out from under his covers to survey the gauze that was stained lightly in red.

The commander groaned, letting his arm fall to his side and his head sink further into the pillow.

“So you do,” Obi-Wan concluded aloud. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, sir,” Cody responded, no longer meeting Obi-Wan’s eyes.

Obi-Wan frowned.

“Listen, Cody. I’m not your commanding officer right now. I’m not General Kenobi. I’m not even Master Kenobi.” Cody’s eyes wandered to him uncertainly. “I’m just Obi-Wan. Your friend, who cares about you a _lot_.”

Cody’s eyes went pink around the edges.

“So I’m going to ask you, very directly, why I just found one of my closest friends - my _partner_ \- bleeding out in the ‘fresher.”

There was silence between them. Cody didn’t answer, and Obi-Wan didn’t push. They sat in silence, neither speaking. Cody opened his mouth as if to answer a few times, but nothing came. No sounds, no words, no nothing.

Obi-Wan knew better than to push too hard, so he sat and waited.

Tears slipped down Cody’s cheeks. He didn’t brush them away. He didn’t acknowledge them.

Obi-Wan stood slowly, leaning over his friend, and brushed away the wetness.

And suddenly it was like the floodgates had been opened.

Cody cried and sobbed like a child, but he didn’t say anything. Obi-Wan sat the man up and wrapped him in a hug, holding him tightly as Cody clung to his robes. They still didn’t speak. Cody’s sobs pulled tears from Obi-Wan’s own eyes so they cried together, alone in the medbay at three in the morning.

In just over a day, they would exit hyperspace and arrive at Coruscant. There would surely be a battle. Obi-Wan’s job was to rescue the Chancellor with Anakin. Cody would be elsewhere, either set to the planet’s surface or kept on the _Negotiator_ to lead in Obi-Wan’s stead.

But for now, they curled together and cried, hurt and mourning and hoping things would get better.

And knowing they might not.


End file.
